One week ago, at least half of the employees of the streaming PC game service OnLive found themselves laid off as the company quickly reorganized. While OnLive's servers are still running, it's clear that the idea of cloud-based PC gaming still has a long way to go before it's a viable alternative to download services like Steam.

Now it looks like at least some of the laid off OnLive employees could find themselves working for a new boss: Microsoft. The company has set up an web page that specifically invites "individuals and teams affected by the OnLive transition" to a hiring mixer on Monday at Microsoft's offices in Mountain View, California. The location is near OnLive's own headquarters in Palo Alto.

Microsoft says in its invite that it is hiring in both Mountain View and its main headquarters in Redmond, Washington. The invite doesn't say anything specifically about Microsoft developing its own cloud-based streaming game service, saying only that it has "big projects in the pipeline for the rest of 2012 and beyond."

Microsoft at one point considered OnLive to be a threat to its Xbox division, according to recently leaked two year old internal documents, and apparently considered acquiring it. It now looks like Microsoft is more interested in the people behind OnLive rather than the company itself.